Race and American Political Development Edited by First published 2008 by Routledge Joseph Lowndes, Julie Novkov, 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously publishcd in the UK and Dorian T. Warren by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Fra"cis Group, an inJimna JJusi"ess II:) 2008 Taylor & Francis Typeset in Galliard by Keystroke, 28 High Street, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton Printed and bound in the United States of America on acid-free paper by Edwards Brothers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or otller means, now known or hereafrer invented, indoding photocopying and recording, or in any intornlation storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corpor.lte names may be trademarks or registcred trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Catalogi"g in Publication Data Race and American political development / edited by Jrn.eph Lowndes, Julie Novkov, and Dorian Warren. p.em. Includes bibliographical re/creonces and index. ISBN 978-0-415-96151-6 (hardback: alk. paper)-ISBN 978-0-41S-96153-D (pbk. : alt. paper) 1. United Statcs--Racc relations-Political aspects. 2. United States-Politics and government. 1. Lowndes, Joseph, 1966- II. Novkov, Julie, 1966-1I1. Warren, Dorian, 1976- E185.61.R182008 305.896073--<1c22 2007045388 ISBNI0: (}-41S-96151-3 (hbk) ISBN 10: (}-41 S-96 1 53-X (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-96151-6 (hbk) i~ ~~~:!,;2.:{~p ISBN 13: 978-0-415-961S3-D (pbk) NEW YORK AND LONDON nJe origim of the carcertJl crisis 235 incarceration disparity has increased from roughly three-to-one to roughly 10 The origins of the carceral seven-to-one. This combination of scale shift and disparity increase has brought seismic demographic ruptures for black Americans: nearly 10 percent of the crisis: Racial order as "law black voting-age population is currendy disenfranchised due to a tCiony conviction; there are more black men in jails and prisons than in colleges and and order" in postwar American universities; incarceration rates for black women are roughly six times those politics of dleir white counterparts; and nearly one million black children have a parent in jailor prison (Mumola 2000; Manza and Uggen 2006: 253; Western 2006: 15-16). If "political development" is considered a "durable shift" in the "exer­ Naomi Murakawa cise of control over persons or things that is designated and enforceable by the state" (Orren and Skowronek 2004: 123), then the modern growth of the carceral state-propelled in large part by the incarceration of black Americalls­ there is violence in our streets, corruption in our highest offices, aim­ should be a prime area of study in American political development. lessness among our youth, anxiety among our elders and there is a virtual When and how did "law and order" become so conflated with racial order, among the many who look beyond material success for the inner mean­ so politically prominent, and so consequential to the development of the U.S. of their lives ... The growing menace in our country tonight, to personal carceral state? Scholars mark the mid- and late 1960s as pivotal years for crime to life, to limb and properry, in homes, in churches, on the playgrounds, policy, with Goldwater identified as a kind of inaugural figure for the era of and places of business, particularly in our great cities, is the mOllllting concern, mass incarceration. Scholars emphasize different factors that made the 1960s or should be, of every thoughtful citizen in the United States. Security from ripe tor "law and order" appeals, giving particular attention to the roles of domestic violence, no less than from foreign aggression, is dle most elementary crime, riots, public punitiveness, and racial backlash (tor detailed literature and fundamental purpose of any government, and a government that cannot fulfill that purpose is one that cannot long command the loyalty of its citizens. review, see Gottschalk 2006: chapter 2 ).1 Crime rates began rising in the early History shows us--demonstrates that nothing-nothing prepares the way for 1960s, urban riots accelerated throUgll 1967 and 1968, and some scholars tyranny more than the lailetre of public officials to keep the streets from bullies argue that consequendy public opinion turned to favor longer prison sentences and marauders. (Wilson 1975; Page and Shapiro 1992: 90-4; Marion 1994). Odler scholars Barry Goldwater, accepting the nomination fiJr president at the suggest that 1960s liberalism went too far too last tor white Americans, who 28th Republican National Convention, July 16,1964 became disillusioned wid1 the excesses ofdle Great Society, black power, and black rioters. In this line of analysis, carceral state development is part of a broader racial backlash that retrenches black progress through race-coded At the height of the civil rights era, after President Lyndon Johnson signed appeals to welfare, school choice, and crime (Edsall and Edsall 1992; Beckett the 1964 Civil Rights Act and while thousands of blacks registered to vote 1997; Flamm 2(05). In the 1960s context of crime and racial tension, analysts during the 1964 Freedom Summer, the Republican presidential candidate credit Goldwater with "setting dle scene for debate about crime" (Rosch 1985: Barry Goldwater campaigned using a particular indictment of the struggle for 25), as Goldwater "constructed what would become dIe standard conservative black freedom: black civil rights, he suggested, are linked to crime. Throughout formulation oflaw and order" (Flamm 2005: 33).2 his campaign speeches, Goldwater traced rising crime rates to black civil This chapter represents an effort to retrace the trajectory of race-laden disobedience, black demands fIX equality under the law, and black reliance on "law and order" political appeals. Conventional wisdom suggests that the. the welfare state. Goldwater conflated civil disobedience widl "violence in our 1960s ushered in a new era of racialized crime politics, but this chapter suggests streets" and black activists with "bullies and marauders," and in so doing he that national leaders explicitly and routinely addressed black civil rights in contended-subdy but undeniably-that black freedom necessitates a strong criminological terms-and they did so nearly two decades befiJre escalating "law and order" response. crime rates, before widespread riots, and before dle Goldwater presidential In dIe years f()llowing Goldwater's defeat, politicallcaders declared victory campaign of 1964. Since President Harry Truman's creation of the Committee over Jim Crow while simultaneously passing more mandatory minimums, tor Civil Rights in 1946, opponents and supporters of black civil rights linked funding more prison construction, and reinstating the death penalty, all with "the Negro problem" with "the crime problem." Specifically, civil rights disproportionate impact on black Americans. Incarceration rates have increased opponents and southern Democrats in Congress argued that crime was a 1110re than five-told since Goldwater warned of the "growing menace" to manifestation of black civil rights dlat had gone too far: civil rights breed crime, "personal safety" in 1964, and during this same period the black-to-white dley claimed, by disrupting the naturally harmoniolls segr.egation of the races 236 Naomi Murakct1l'ct The origins of the carccrai crisis 237 and by validating black discretion on selective law-obedience. Civil rights as chaotic as Chicago, Detroit, and New York. Postwar racial configurations­ proponents and many llorthern Democrats responded that street crime was particularly tlle nexus of rising black activism, renewed federal attention to black evidence that black civil rights had not gone t~lr enough: unfulfilled civil rights civil rights, white violence against black veterans, and black urbanization <11'.'C"'."" breed crime, they claimed, because racial inequality sustains black alongside white suburbanization-led many white Americans to express racial and engenders black distrust of laws. While seemingly opposite anxiety in criminological terms. interpretations, both explanations attribute crime to black civil rights, and both ]n detailing the mobilization of "law and order" rhetoric from 1946 through ll1S identif)· blacks as dd:1Ult suspects in the crime problem 1963, this section sketches a timeline and a rhetorical trajectory for crime on 2005). the national agenda. During this period, "law and order" rhetoric is a subsidiary The postwar transformation of racial order into "law and order" is more of the postwar struggle tix black freedom, so major benchmarks proceed tt·om than just a back-story to current scholarship. Historicizing "law and order" President Truman's creation of the Committee on Civil Rights in 1946, to acnplly challenges notions that 1964 "set the scene t()[ debate about crime;" Bt"own }'. Board of Education in 1954, to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, to the in ~ sense, deeper racial antecedents emerge when "law and order" itself is sit-ins in 1960, to the March on Washington in 1963. Southern Democrats in studied ill a long-term political sequence rather than in a cross-seetional Congress, as well as many whites in the South and the urban NOrtll, defended moment of all factors contemporaneous with the 1964 presidenrial campaign. Jim Crow